Four out of five cycle apps installed on mobile devices in the UK share sensitive personal data with advertisers, presumably for a fee. This also includes cycle dates, information about contraception and how often the user has sex. Contact details are also being resold as marketing contact lists, research by the Organization for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) (here) on behalf of the NHS ( here) shows.
Cycle apps enable tailored advertising
Experts criticize the "careless" treatment of sensitive personal information and warn that women's health data could be used to target them with tailored advertising. It turned out that 21 of the 25 apps analyzed - 84 percent - share at least some data with external third parties, while 24 out of 25 make users' health data available to app developers. 70 percent of those who share data with third parties do so for marketing purposes, 40 percent for “research purposes” and 40 percent to improve apps.
Cycle apps, i.e. period and fertility tracking apps, have become increasingly popular over the past decade. The London-based app “Flo” alone has 200 million users worldwide. Cycle trackers make up the majority of the booming “femtech” market, which was worth around $22 billion in 2020 and is expected to be worth $60 billion in five years.
Data valuable for companies
“This data is incredibly valuable for companies with a direct or indirect interest in knowing who is fertile, who is pregnant and who may have fertility problems,” says British health technology expert and general practitioner Marcus Baw. It's entirely possible that companies could even use this type of data to target women with ads that arouse emotions at a time in their cycle when they're easily taken in by advertising.
Fatima Ahmed, an obstetrician and gynecologist and ORCHA's clinical lead for women's health, says: "It's alarming that some of these innovative new tools appear to be flippant with women's very intimate information."
Source: press release
In line with this topic! Your cycle: When even social media knows exactly what's going on
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )